In the Hall of Galeazzo the Duke gave audience, which was to be followed by a banquet. Bidden to this came the new knight Bellarion, trailing a splendid houppelande of sapphire velvet edged with miniver that was caught about his waist by a girdle of hammered silver. He had dressed himself with studied care in the azure and argent of his new blazon. His tunic, displayed at the breast, where the houppelande fell carelessly open, and at the arms which protruded to the elbow from the wide short sleeves of his upper garment, was of cloth of silver, whilst his hose was in broad vertical stripes of alternating blue and white. Even his thick black hair was held in a caul of fine silver thread that was studded with sapphires. Imposingly tall, his youthful lankness dissembled by his dress, he drew the eyes of the court as he advanced to pay homage to the Duke. Thereafter he was held awhile in friendly talk by della Torre and the Archbishop. It was in escaping at last from these that he found himself suddenly looking into the solemn eyes of the Princess Valeria, of whose presence in Milan this was his first intimation. She stood a little apart from the main throng under the fretted minstrel's gallery, at the end of the long hall, with the handsome Monna Dionara for only companion. Startled, he turned first red, then white, under the shock of that unexpected encounter. He had a feeling, under those inscrutable eyes, of being detected, stripped of his fine trappings and audacious carriage, and discovered for an upstart impostor, the son of nobody, impudently ruffling it among the great. Thus an instant. Then, recovering his poise, he went forward with leisurely dignity to make his bow, in which there was nothing rustic. She coloured slightly. Her eyes kindled, and she drew back as if to depart. A single interjectory word escaped her: 'Audacious!' 'Lady, I thank you for the word. It shall supply the motto I still lack: "Audax," remembering that "Audaces fortuna juvat."' She had not been a woman had she not answered him. 'Fortune has favoured you already. You prosper, sir.' 'By God's grace, madonna.' 'God has less to do with it, I think, than your own arts.' 'My arts?' He questioned not the word, but the meaning she applied to it. 'Such arts as Judas used. You should study the end he made.' On that she would have gone, but the sharpness of his tone arrested her. 'Madonna, if ever I practised those arts, it was in your service, and a reproach is a poor requital.' 'In my service!' Her eyes momentarily blazed. 'Was it in my service that you came to spy upon me and betray me? Was it in my service that you murdered Enzo Spigno?' She smiled with terrible bitterness. 'I have, you see, no illusions left of the service that you did me.'